Yay thank you for saying something instead of empty judgments. I think most of what you had to say is actually beside the point at issue, and to show I’ll unpack this segment, which has a lot to say about this topic and what I am and am not saying.

every member of the group had access to the same nutrition and that evidence of violent skeletal trauma is significantly less prevalent than after the advent of agriculture.

Let’s go piece by piece.

every member of the group

Raiding is an inter group behavior not an intra group behavior so if this was meant to say “look humans were egalitarian they didn’t raid” it doesn’t say this at all.

evidence of violent skeletal trauma is significantly less prevalent than after the advent of agriculture

I believe this very much supports my point that violent raiding was a way of life. You said: there’s more violence after agriculture. Well, agriculture was the first time that anyone had valuable assets collected in one place: at harvest time.

Of course hunter gatherers exhibit less raiding: first of all dramatically fewer people are supportable without agriculture so there were simply fewer groups available to raid. And hunter gatherers live largely hand to mouth so there is Jo stockpile to raid.

Naturally as soon as there is something to raid, you see the evidence of that.

So what about anything you said do you think contradicts the claim that humans have commonly raided one another for spoils throughout history. Are you going to tell me that slavery wasn’t a thing next?

I think I need you to come to a point instead of just flashing your credentials. You’ve offered a lot of facts from the record but these must be interpreted. It’s that interpretation that makes you an archaeologist, not the shovel.

My claim is that raiding other humans and taking their things was common, because humans want something for nothing and will exploit each other to get it - long before capitalism and conspicuous consumption made it fashionable. I would also offer you the bear that eats the honeycomb, the snake that eats the eggs. A cow mows down grass because it gains more energy by doing so than it spends: ergo profit. Everything is about profit and most of it is savage taking.